• Gita Shoeibi, Babak Babakhani, and Sussan Soltani Mohammadi.
• Department of Anesthesiology, Dr Shariati Hospital, Tehran, Iran.
• Anesth. Analg. 2009 Jan 1;108(1):330-3.

BackgroundPostoperative pain is severe in patients undergoing renal transplantation. Systemic analgesia may produce complications as a result of impaired renal function. We investigated whether combined lower intercostal and Ilioinguinal-Iliohypogastric (IG-IH) nerve block might improve the quality of analgesia and reduce morphine consumption during the first 24 h after surgery.MethodsForty-two patients, scheduled as kidney transplant recipients were randomized into two equal groups and were anesthetized with the same technique. After surgery IG-IH, T11 and T12 intercostal nerves on the side of surgery were blocked by bupivacaine 0.5%. The control group was not blocked. Postoperative pain and total amount of morphine consumption were recorded by a person who was blinded to the allocation.ResultsThere were significant differences in median visual analog scale scores (25th-75th) measurements at all time points in the study groups (P < 0.05). The total amount of morphine consumption during 24 h was 12.7 +/- 10.5 mg in the blocked group compared with 34.9 +/- 5.9 mg in the nonblocked group (P < 0.001).ConclusionsCombined IG-IH and lower intercostal nerves blockade after renal transplantation significantly reduced postoperative pain and opioid consumption.

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